It is time for Africa to turn a new development page and for the global community to support it

By: Ojijo Odhiambo & Odera Outa.
This year’s UN General Assembly was a moment to, hopefully, put Africa back on track to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.
Heads of State and Government in attendance spelt out their national commitments to SDGs transformation, including strategies for reducing poverty and inequality, as well as options necessary in decarbonising their energy systems and transforming their food systems-among other urgent imperatives.
The leaders were also expected to hammer a new global development financing deal, dubbed the SDGs stimulus, worth some $500 billion annually.
This year’s assembly, coming at the mid-way point of the implementation of the sustainable development agenda, was also meant to take stock of the progress made in implementing the SDGs amidst some of the most complex and pressing development challenges to face humankind.
The COVID 19 pandemic, the debilitating effects of climate change and the Russia-Ukraine war, have all negatively affected economic growth, increased vulnerability and pushed millions of people in Africa into even more perilous poverty.
The inescapable reality of these times is that unless there is a change of course, Africa will miss most of the SDG targets.
Africa’s debt crisis
The region continues to experience sluggish economic growth and rising debt.
According to the World Bank, growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) slowed steadily from 4.1% in 2021 to 3.6% in 2022 and is expected to slow down even further to 3.1% this year. This level of growth is insufficient to reduce extreme poverty or even boost shared prosperity as envisaged in the SDGs clarion call.
At the same time, over the past few decades, Africa’s debt has increased four times the rate of economic growth in dollar terms, reaching a staggering $1.8 trillion in 2022.
Sluggish growth, together with rising debt and development financing deficit are perhaps the biggest impediments to the achievement of the SDGs in Africa.
According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation Development (OECD), to achieve the SDGs by 2030, Africa needs an additional $194 billion or 40 per cent of the proposed financial stimulus, per annum. This is the equivalent of 7% of the region’s gross domestic product, or 34 percent of the region’s 2021 total investments.
In as far as climate change is concerned, it is to be noted that Africa which contributes less than 8% of greenhouse gases emissions continues to bear a disproportionate share of the debilitating effects of climate change.
These are experienced in the form of extreme weather conditions such as cyclones, droughts and floods; desertification and natural resources degradation; destruction of basic national infrastructure and other impacts. The result is the growing poverty and inequality; social tensions; insecurity and, in extreme cases, political instability.
To date, the Paris Agreement, remains largely unfunded. More worryingly, the limited climate financing available is concentrated in the developed world on reduction and, or prevention of emissions, otherwise known as mitigation in climate change parlance.
This is opposed to the stark need to help African countries change their agricultural production systems, conserve forests and natural habitats and adopt climate smart technologies, otherwise known as adaptation.
Between 2019 and 2020, donors made an annual climate finance commitment, (not to be mistaken for disbursement), of $11.4 billion for adaptation measures in Africa against the annual financing needs of $52.7 billion, leading to a financing gap of some $41.3 billion per year.
Africa needs a Solidarity Fund
Africa is, evidently, at a sustainable developmental crossroads.
For the region to change its development trajectory and make meaningful progress towards the SDGs targets by 2030, an important consideration should be the establishment of a simplified, flexible and quick disbursing Solidarity Fund for sustainability transitions.
Through such a fund, the global community of nations, individuals, private sector institutions and philanthropies could stand in solidarity with the region by pooling resources for the singular aim of helping Africa to transition, expeditiously, to a sustainable development pathway.
Sustainability transitions in this context refers to an African context-specific, nationally led and resilient non-linear shift from one dynamic development equilibrium to another dynamic, and yet a more sustainable, one fuelled primarily by adequate financing.
In the lead up to this year’s General Assembly, with support from the United Nations Development Programme, many African countries were able to refine their national SDGs priorities and commitments using machine learning technology.
This was done through the application of the Integrated SDGs Insights tool. In the process, they have evolved context-specific, ambitious and transformative agenda with parsimonious set of priority targets bearing the most linkages and highest potential for impact across sectors and hence accelerating progress towards the SDGs.
These national priority targets or those derived from other national consultative processes for that matter are, naturally, strong candidates for the African Solidarity Fund for sustainability transitions.
The results of the re-prioritisation and refinement of national SDGs priorities using the Integrated SDGs Insights tool are as diverse as the African countries. They cover the entire width and breadth of the goals spread across the economic, social and environmental sectors.
In accessing the fund, each African country would have the leeway to apply its share of the fund to address the development priorities which have the greatest synergies and least trade-offs across sectors.
Indeed, there can be no simplistic prescriptions, but rather, a wide menu of nationally defined policy options for the application of the fund.
However, there must be strong governance structures and accountability mechanisms as well as a focus on results in the application of the fund.
It is conceivable that the necessary governance and accountability mechanisms, founded on and given priority by national technical and financial audit institutions could also be embedded in the quadrennial SDGs summit or even the annual High Level Political Forum.
The Solidarity Fund should, however, not be viewed as a replacement for the global financial stimulus discussed at the gathering of world leaders, but rather, as a complementary fast-track mechanism through which African countries can be supported to revert to the SDG trajectory by implementing their SDGs priorities.
Yet, another important aspect of the fund would be the opportunity to bridge the ever-present gap between policy promises, country-specific priorities and their implementation.
It is time for Africa to turn a new development page and walk a different development path. It is time for the global community to pull together, in solidarity with Africa.

Ojijo Odhiambo is the UNDP Economic Advisor for Zimbabwe, while Odera Outa is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at the Technical University of Kenya.